Two Weeks

"....suffering reveals the desolation of the world. Through pride and distraction we cast ourselves out of primeval reality, out of the realm of persons and radiant truth. We precipitate ourselves into a universe of our own making, a world. Here we cannot be happy. We may for a time be diverted by the exuberance of pride or by the pleasures of worldly existence. But the world is an impoverished kingdom. It is made up of objects and is comprehensively impersonal. Within it we are necessarily alienated from self, from others, and from the depths of being that Christians know as God. We are separated from every possible source of enduring joy and peace. Suffering makes this clear to us. It robs us of pleasures and satisfactions of worldly existence, and prompts us to look beyond the world, towards transcendence." Glenn Tinder in Liberty: Rethinking an Imperiled Ideal.

Last week, in terms of being a neonatologist, was a week from Hell, or so it seemed in the midst of the week. The summation of unexpected events, bad outcomes, lack of sleep, straining to meet the normal obligations of being an educator, and just life in general had brought me to a rare point of fatigue. With a weekend trip to see our grandchild in the offing, I was less than enthusiastic about traveling and the additional fatigue that brings to a my 60 year old body.

Yet, as we left the beauty of Mobile in the Spring, the azaleas in full bloom, dogwood trees everywhere, wisteria randomly draping over trees like colorful kudzu, there was a sense of satisfaction that I could not identify. Was it just relief that the week was over? Well, yes, in part. But there was more to it than that. Was it the successes of the week rising like cream above the milk of routine, giving a pleasurable flavor that overcame the sourness of lives disrupted by disease? That was also a part of the sense of completeness that pervaded my being that afternoon.

But as I read Glenn Tinder's essay on Liberty, and as I read the passage that includes the above quote, I was reacquainted with what I already knew, but often choose to deny: difficulty, suffering if you will, brings us to our knees, removes our pride, reduces worldly distractions to dust, and brings us into the stark realization of our dependence on Someone besides ourselves.

This week was different. Routine followed upon routine. Endeavors undertaken were almost uniformly successful, sleep was available if not plentiful, and the week ended as a March that had come in as a lion....meek, quiet, and uneventfully as a lamb.

In a year, in a decade, in eternity, when I look back on the weeks that mattered the most, last week will be more meaningful than this week, more realistic, less worldly in terms of pride and bowing to empty distraction.

That seems "upside down". But reality is not what we see day to day. We see, as Tinder points out elsewhere in his wonderful essay, a distortion of reality shaped to fit our current circumstances and designed to allow us to participate in either control of the now or to escape to the distraction of pleasure.

When true reality, brought on by suffering, becomes our reality, we are brought into the realm of transcendence, into renewed relationship with our Father-God, and no matter the fatigue and seeming hopelessness of the moment, we are led into the green pastures of Psalm 23, the joy and peace of His righteousness, the knowledge of His protection in the valley of the shadow of death.

It is then that the table is set, that our heads are anointed with oil, that our enemies, the agents of suffering, are made to know of His love that overcomes the world, and that we are made to know that we will dwell with Him forever.

Two weeks. What a difference. And when confronted with the choice of one or the other, the grave temptation is to choose the latter. That is the worldliness within me. Thanks be to God that He knows the true reality of what we need and provides, even as we rail against it.

Abba Father.